Sunday, December 31, 2006

It has been said that socially Evangelicalism is five to ten years “behind” the broader culture. John Warwick Montgomery once remarked that America was where old German heresies went to die, meaning that eventually the intellectual refuse of the elite came to infect the American church no matter how reluctant the bride of Christ in the United States might have initially been to such doctrinal fads.

Back in the 90’s, Evangelicals looked on in astonishment as Postmodernists from lofty chairs in academia went about undermining the notion that one should not be judged by the color of one’s skin but rather by the content of one’s character. Instead. these deconstructionists suggested that one should be assessed primarily as a member of one’s herd and judged in light of either the sins or disadvantages of one’s forefathers.

As a result, whereas in years previous those of certain backgrounds struggled to take their place in and recognized as full members of society, the trend reversed itself and those skilled in exploiting past resentments were able to shame the majority into allowing certain demographic classifications to cordon themselves off as they saw fit while denying this proclivity to the members of the most numerous group. Though conservative Christians initially bucked such a trend by admonishing that it is ultimately the individual that Jesus died and rose from the dead for and will whom be judged, they too are now succumbing to this social pressure.

Among Evangelicals eager for the accolades of the elite, one popular refrain invoked to show just how tolerant certain leaders can be is that 11 am Sunday is the most segregated hour in America, bemoaning the fact that most Christians prefer to worship with members of their own ethnicity even if they do not harbor blatant ill will or hostility to their fellow coreligionists of different backgrounds. Upon closer examination, one will see that it is a condemnation few ashamed of being White are reluctant to level at minorities as well.

Despite the fact that many denominations do not have the demographic ratios those so obsessed with race to prove to the world that they are not obsessed with race clamor for, a number of them do have memberships consisting of a variety of ethnic groups. But instead of capitalizing on this situation by not harping on racial differences and allowing believers to find their own dynamic equality, those running these religious associations as their own private ecclesiastical syndicates refuse to let sleeping denominations lie and hope to accrue power for themselves by playing the same racial spoils game popular in more liberal circles.

Commemorating the birth of the Lord of all mankind and the Savior of believers from every nation, tribe, and tongue, one would think that all Christians could celebrate Christmas without reference to color. However, even this cherished festival is degenerating into a front for radical social engineering.

On December 2, 2006, the Mid-Atlantic District of the Church Of The Nazarene held an African American Christmas Dinner. To those conditioned into embracing such directives from their handlers without question, such an affair might not seem all that out of the ordinary. But unless chitterlings and collard greens are going to be the main course on the menu, does an African American Christmas differ all that appreciably from the Christmas of any other American group?

As to whether or not a denomination should be hosting such a function, we should ask ourselves would it be appropriate to convene a “Caucasian” or more precisely, a “European American Christmas Dinner”? If the prospect of such an event leaves you a bit squeamish (as it probably should), then why do we put up with or, shall we say, tolerate such extravaganzas when they are convened for groups more favored by the ruling clique?

In James 2, the believer is warned against showing favoritism and in I Corinthians 11, the church is admonished regarding these matters in reference to the Lord’s Supper and meals eaten in His name. If this command applies to something that may be earned such as wealth, how much more so in pertaining to a characteristic the individual has absolutely no control over.

Friday, December 29, 2006

In light of “The Crisis on Infinite Earths” that rest asunder the parallel dimensions of the DC Comics multiverse, the 1980’s were a time of innovation and reinterpretation for the Man of Steel.

“Superman In The Eighties” is an anthology giving readers a taste of this costumed hero’s adventures on both sides of the Infinite Earths saga.

Rather than a comprehensive chronology, the compilation consists of a series of vignettes providing considerable insight into this beloved icon of contemporary American folklore.

A number of the tales included tug at the heart as much as they regale with action and adventure.

In one story published before the John Byrne “Man of Steel” miniseries where aspects of the Superman mythos were updated or tweaked, aliens transport Jonathan Kent through time to see what becomes of Clark in the future after his adopted father has already passed on.

In another, Superman confronts his own pride when the Specter reminds Superman that they are realms reserved for God Himself.

And in a third, Superman comes face to face with childhood versions of his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster on an earth where alien invaders have manipulated the timestream to eradicate the concepts of heroism and imagination from human culture in order to make the earth easier to conquer.

“Superman In The Eighties” will make a valuable reference for any graphic novel library or comic collection.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

In the Superman comics, Bizarro is a twisted clone of Superman that perceives things backwards such as bad being good, up being down, and left being right. As intense as the annual Christmas conflagrations have become over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before those wishing to stand for decency and common sense found themselves in an unsettling situation where the usual roles were reversed.

In a number of short stories I have written such as “The Schauungtown Chronicles” and “An U.N.I.Q.U.E. Individual”, an organization known as the Toleration Fellowship set in a world governed by an elaborate system of homeowner associations suppresses traditional religious expression on behalf of secularists and New Age mystics in the name of inclusion and diversity. The Toleration Fellowship uses as its insignia the upside-down broken-cross peace symbol.

In a case in Colorado, it seems these roles have been reversed. A woman in a homeowner association there was being threatened with a fine of $25 a day for hanging on her home on private property a wreath in the shape of the peace sign. A number of residents took offense because the peace sign can also be interpreted as a Satanic symbol celebrating the defeat of Christ.

And even though the connections between New Age peaceniks and Luciferians are not exposed as nearly as much as they ought to be, so what in regards to what this lady wants to hang on the side of her house? It’s not like she tried to hang this on the side of someone else’s house or painted a naked lady tied to an altar. It’s just a round wreath not that much different than anybody else’s.

This is America and private property should still mean something. However, if we dig below the surface of this story that tickles our Christmas cackles we will see a much more ominous threat here than even whether or not a beloved Christmas decoration conforms to acceptable standards and that issue is about out of control homeowner associations.

Those in the “all rules must be obeyed simply because they are rules even if they say toss your granny into oncoming traffic” crowd will argue that membership in these organizations is voluntary. Is it though?

For if the individual wants to live in a particular neighborhood, they are informed almost as an after thought in many cases once the real estate transaction is completed that they must render homage as a vassal unto his feudal lord if they desire to remain in their newly procured domicile. And like any other serf living on a manor, the member of the homeowner association is bound by a pledge of obedience to whatever rules and bylaws the peasant’s betters might decide to promulgate.

Those enthusiastic to have every detail of their lives micromanaged down to the smallest degree that, if these kinds of rules are not enforced, the order and aesthetics making these developments desirable places to dwell will not be maintained. However, from analyzing just how extensive these kinds of regulations have become over the years, one has to ask are these governing boards more concerned about maintaining order or imposing a uniformity of thought upon the residents.

For what harm can a wreath with a couple extra sprigs of greenery strategically placed cause to property values. However, to the totalist mind such a decoration poses a greater threat to the COMMUNITY than a rusted car up on four cement blocks with rats living in it.

In several press accounts, it was initially reported that a decoration interpreted as being against the war could not be countenanced since it might foments DIVISIVENESS, one of the few remaining offenses worse than INDIVIDUALISM with the only greater wrongs perhaps being “racism” or “homophobia”. Thus, conformity to the group norm even in matters not even related to decorum or safety become even more important than liberties once considered foundational such as free expression and conscience. Specifics of the Second Gulf War asides, funny, I thought those qualities were some of the primary reasons justifying intervention abroad.

So long as no one goes to slashing tires and stuffing dead cats into mail boxes, what’s wrong with a little neighborhood division as it will actually prove good for everyone in the long run. It is in areas where everyone is forced to swallow the expression of their convictions for fear o f incurring some kind of legal penalty or social sanction as authorized under speech codes against “hate speech” and the like that such violence and vandalism usually occur.

Eventually, the homeowners association backed down from taking action against the peace sign. Ironically, that is itself a disturbing sign from a certain perspective.

For the governing board did not ultimately back down from its position having realized they had infringed upon the property rights and the dignity of the individual homeowner but rather because of the intensity of the response to their initial decision. Thus, things are not determined to be right or wrong by their relation to some eternal unchanging standard but whether or not they conform to the group consensus. Or as my family, who even though they don’t live in a homeowners association, were informed by a neighbor with whom we had gotten into a verbal altercation that they did not have to respect our property because, “No one likes you all anyway.”

This year, the unorthodox Yuletide decoration will be allowed to remain. But what is to protect its hanger when public opinion turns; does it really then become wrong to hang whatever greenery one wants on the side of their domicile?

Apart from the salvation found only in His Son Jesus Christ, God’s greatest gift to humanity is none other than the freedom we enjoy as beings created in His image. Thus one of the most profound yet subtle forms of blasphemy is none other than handing this precious heritage over to either individuals or organizations that were never meant to exert control to such an extent over our lives.

Friday, December 22, 2006

According to Kevin Swanson, now you are a rotten Christian if you don't let neighbors and strangers rummage though your house.

Swanson discusses the issue of hospitality in light of the Christmas season.

As expected, much of this is advocated from an intelligence gathering perspective so that ecclesiastical overseers and the like may gather a dossier as to what the individual under surveillance (er I mean being visited) is like away from more formal settings such as work or church.

I think some evangelist, pastor, or apologist ought to do a series on the neglected "mind your own business doctrine".

Frankly though, if you've had nothing to do with me the remainder of the year, don't bother with me at Christmas time (as well as with funerals and the like) because obviously you are not reaching out in friendship but rather out of some expectation of that I assuage your guilty conscience for treating me like dirt the rest of the time.

Syfyportal.com is reporting that a new web-based animated Star Trek is being proposed.

The six minute episodes will be set 150 years after the time of Next Generation in the aftermath of a war with the Romulans where something happens and vast sectors of the galaxy can no longer be reached by warp drive.

From the description, it sounds a bit like Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

In a land as prosperous as that of the United States, from time to time parents must remind their offspring that the Christmas season is not suppose to be as much about the gift as about the sentiment behind the present. However, as charities themselves degenerate into bloated bureaucracies more concerned about perpetuating themselves than about assisting the downtrodden, those administering these organizations no longer view the giving public as the real heroes behind what use to be considered grassroots eleemosynary but rather as dimwitted cogs to be lectured as to how the acts once perceived as selfless are actually reactionary gestures undermining the progressive vision of their enlightened betters.

Even within my own short life thus far, at one time Toys for Tots was grateful to receive any new toy or even a good used one in reasonable condition (as from my own experience I can tell you that a second-hand Millennium Falcon is as nearly as much a delight as one fresh out of the box). However, like a spoiled child getting too much at Christmas, now not only aren’t second-hand toys not good enough for these philanthropic agencies, but now they also dictate what kinds of new ones may be donated as well.

Before having their rears handed to them and deciding to reverse their position as a result of the public humiliation, Toys for Tots initially turned down a donation of 4,000 Bible quoting Jesus dolls not because the figurines might be seen as a tad tacky but rather because the doll might offend non-Christian families such as Jews and Muslims. As a charity distributing its beneficences based upon the destitution of the intended recipients, when was the last time a Jewish family even qualified for goodies from Toys for Tots?

Seriously though, if an individual finds Christmas (and more importantly) the Christ inspiring this particular celebration so odious, why are they accepting gifts anyway? If this charity is being thrust upon the recipients against their will in the same spirit of “we’re doing this for your own good whether you want it or not” characterizing many of the programs directed at manipulating those targeted into accepting their status as “underprivileged”, perhaps its is Toys for Tots that needs the cliched lecture about not imposing its values on others rather than the American people receiving a lecture on the matter from Toys for Tots.

If those paraded before us these days as destitute can be as selective of the charity bestowed upon them as Jabba the Hutt at an all-you-can-eat buffet, it’s about time that a civic dialogue was convened to consider whether or not Toys For Tots has outlived its usefulness. For in the current retail environment with a Wal-Mart in nearly every county and a dollar store in almost every other strip mall, frankly if you can’t afford to buy your kid a small toy, a $0.75 pack or notebook paper, and a Snicker’s bar or two, one really ought not to be doing the kinds of things that result in children in the first place.

No where does it say your progeny are entitled to Lionel Trains, Tonka Trunks, or Nintendo Sets under the Christmas tree. Maybe if these parents didn’t spend their money on gold teeth, pierced noses, and nightclub boogie dances, they wouldn’t need the Marines (or at least the Reservists) to charge in to save Christmas.

Over the past decade or so, one has come to expect secularists to get their dander up over Christmas. Surprisingly, even Christian organizations that don’t have all that much of a problem using the Christmas season as an excuse to pander for handouts are now themselves thinking they are too good for the religious underpinnings of Christmas.

Over the last several years, Franklin Graham has earned a reputation for being outspoken about certain trends prominent in the world today. However, if certain developments within the family’s ecclesiastical domain are any indication, it seems Junior may have developed a touch of daddy’s degenerative spine disorder where one becomes so accustomed to the accolades of world leaders and the influential that such praise slowly becomes just as important as standing for the uncompromised truth.

As part of Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child is a program organized to distribute Christmas gift boxes to children in impoverished nations around the world. One would think little controversy would erupt as theoretically the program involves little more that the distribution of gift boxes assembled by well-meaning believers and delivered to enthusiastic youngsters.

However, even this has turned into yet another scheme for fostering political correctness around the globe. In being taught a lesson in gratitude and appreciation, most children learn to say a polite thank you and not to complain in front of the giver should they find something they don’t care for when they open a present (after all, you can always regift if the giver is not that close of an acquaintance). Yet now contemporary Christian leaders are so concerned about offending international sensibilities (i.e. afraid a Muslim is going to riot) that these ministries have issued elaborate decrees on what the average believer may or may not give.

For example, according to a Daily Mail story entitled, “Christian charity bans Christian themed children’s gifts”, Samaritan’s Purse has expressly banned “war-related items such as Action Man-type figures.” So basically anything a young heterosexual adolescent boy would want to play with. Sure, toy cars and planes might still be allowed, but if Ted Haggard hadn’t gotten caught letting another man shift his gears, one wonders how long it would have been until these had been banned as well since, according to the limpwristed pansies coming to predominate the ranks of Evangelical leadership, these modes of transportation are coming to be seen as just as evil as the implements of war (unless of course you happen to be one of those bigshot leaders who will still be permitted to jet around the world telling the rest of us just how evil we are for manifesting the disease of individualism as embodied by driving our own automobiles to work and refusing to carpool).

Peaceniks will respond that the last thing boys need in these mudhole countries is additional encouragement to make war. If that’s the case, I hope the girls will be denied baby dolls as the last thing they need to be encouraged to is to have more kids, though it might be politically incorrect to say, the rest of us are going to have to pay for in terms of foreign aide or as the result of one too many missionary sob stories playing on the guilt pounded into our own psyches over the fact for simply being American.

Unfortunately, there is even more at stake than the lads of the Third World being feminized to the same degree as their counterparts here in the West. For not only is male vitality to be removed but the strength of explicitly Christian convictions as well.

We rubes sitting in the pews with our limited mental capacity would no doubt conclude that the primary reason for sending Christmas boxes overseas would be to tell the children there about Jesus Christ since, as unpopular as the idea might be, those without Him still die and go to Hell even in this age of runaway tolerance. However, our theological betters (at least those in endowed positions that keep reminding us they are our theological betters) would tell us that the best way to tell someone about Jesus is to not tell them about Jesus at all.

For while Christians are free to jam the boxes with assorted miscellany, items of a religious nature are promptly removed. Despite claming to do it for fear of offending non-Christians, it makes you wonder what percentage of objects attained through this pious five-finger discount end up under the trees and in the stockings of the offspring of Samaritan’s Purse personnel.

Frankly, if those these gifts are being sent to are all that hostile towards information about Jesus that mere mention of His name is going to send the recipient into homicidal conniptions, perhaps missionaries to these countries in question should pullback to the lands of the West and fortify our borders by refusing to let anymore from these nations into our countries and work on converting those already here.

Those studying institutional change over time will note that usually religious organizations with even the best of intentions inevitably slide towards theological liberalism. And like the fate that befell the mainline denominations, eventually confusion and distorted purpose will come to grip the administration of Operation Christmas Child and Samaritan’s Purse if steps are not taken now to curb the “sensitivity” tide.

Most of the time, a good Christmas story rings with an eternal truth that cannot be denied. It seems the truth in this tale is that you are better off donating your charity dollar to an organization that you yourself have direct contact with such as a reliable church, a family that you know, or maybe your own savings account for when you’re old the way Social Security is headed the only charity that will be there to lend you a helping will be you yourself.

Those duped by the professional altruists might be shocked by such a statement. Such noble outrage would be better directed towards those manipulating our sympathies through direct mail fundraising and the like.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

For years, whispers have ebbed and flowed across the currents of cyberspace that the U.S. government had plans on the drawing board for the establishment of detention and relocation camps to heard massive swaths of the population into during times of declared national emergency.

Haughty sophisticates regularly dismissed such nuggets of information, claiming such warnings were the ravings of kooks and the paranoid. However, at last more mainstream news sources are willing to admit such holding pens of dubious constitutionality are in the works.

According to a FoxNews.com report titled “Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used For Immigration Round-Ups”, a contract has been granted to a subsidiary of Halliburton no less for the establishment of emergency relocation centers for use during a national disaster or immigration crisis. Though marketed as a way to house illegals as they are processed back to their countries of origin, the American people need to be warned this might not be the only purpose for such facilities.

For starters, as Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi points out in the FoxNews.com story, “An emergency is basically anything DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) deems an emergency.” Thus Americans could theoretically be herded into such facilities over reasons far less ominous than natural disasters and calamities.

This is especially dangerous in light of rulings such as the Kelo decision that imbue the rich and powerful with a nearly unimpeachable infallibility. What’s to stop some unscrupulous developers from getting their puppets in government from declaring an “aesthetic emergency” or something just as ridiculous in a less than picturesque area and cart the residents off to some holding area while their houses are torn down? Or since feigned concern over obesity is all the rage, what is to prevent the government from declaring a “nutritional emergency” and haul the chronically gluttonous off to mandatory fat camp?

Don’t laugh. When he was drug czar, Bill Bennett toyed with the idea of snatching kids from their parents in drug-plagued neighborhoods. And at this very moment, the United States is in the middle of any number of declared national emergencies.

Basically, most of the Executive Orders --- regulations promulgated by the President with dubious legality since they were not authorized by Congress --- are already on the books permitting authorities to seize your property, drop you in a camp, and force you to perform slave labor. All that has to be done is to set up facilities and for the President (or whoever might be running the show on that dark day for our country) to give the go-head.

Secondly, shouldn’t the American people be concerned that this so-called “civil defense” matter is being farmed out to the private sector. Many so-called Conservatives kneel so worshipfully at the altar of big business that they claim that protections such as the Bill of Rights and other legal niceties should not apply in a private sector context.

From the tone of the FoxNews.com article, one gets the impression that these proposed facilities will be administered along the lines of a for profit enterprise. As such, are there any guarantees that those corralled into these slaughterhouses will be guaranteed the fundamental liberties and protections we currently enjoy as Americans? Or will the first occupants, when they arrive, be told that they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the United States but rather under the authority of what amounts to the monster offspring of a prison and an out-of-control homeowners association.

Have a complaint about the food. Get back handed across the face. Object to the guards pawing at your buxom wife or teenage daughter, and you get a broom handle up your rectum.

“You’re out of your mind,” the mentally delicate will respond. Am I?

Such abuses already take place by rogue elements of law enforcement. Won’t such behaviors be even more widespread when that annoying Constitution and Bill of Rights are finally done away with once and for all?

Frankly, these kinds of places are hardly run properly when theoretically subject to public scrutiny. Americans would do well to follow the ongoing saga of Katrina recovery as it serves as a kind of experimental case study of the kind of future being planned for the vast majority of us.

According to a WorldNetDaily story titled “FEMA Lifts Reporter Ban”, it has been discovered that until exposed FEMA was forbidding those living in trailer parks set up by the government relief agency from talking with the press without having a Homeland Security handler present. FEMA goons kicked a reporter out of a trailer to which the reporter had been invited by the resident and ordered --- ordered mind you --- another resident back into her trailer that dared to speak to a reporter through a chainlink fence. The last time I checked, losing one’s home in a natural disaster did not make one a felon that had forfeited his rights.

Perhaps the most disheartening thing about the Fox News story bringing this neglected issue to the attention of a more generalized segment of the news-consuming public is that of all the sources researched are prominent names on the left side of the political spectrum such as AlterNet, The Progressive, and two Democratic members of Congress. Claiming to have a political philosophy taking into account the depravity of man unlike their progressivist counterparts given over more to utopian delusions, shouldn’t Conservatives be the ones warning of the dangers to human liberties posed by these detention facilities. For aren’t some of the most fearful words in the English language, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”?

Conservatives backing these facilities because their guy is currently in office should be ashamed of themselves. Shouldn’t they realize that their man won’t always be in office. And even if the party of your choice held power now through the end of time, why does a proposal under consideration suddenly become immoral based upon which party backs the policy? Conservatives wouldn’t countenance plans openly plotting to establish civil detention camps under Clinton, then why accept such a measure under Bush?

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

In an advertisement for a History Channel special about the Mayflower titled "Desperate Crossing", a child is depicted at a school pageant elaborating the misdeeds of the Pilgrims.

If such a documentary is to be justified on the grounds of historical accuracy and disclosure, which is not necessarily a bad thing if viewers are presented with a complete picture with both warts and triumphs, does this mean that come Martin Luther King Day that the History Channel will air a special detailing the marital infidelities and Communist associations of the famed civil rights leader?

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Though the sermon “Long Range New Covenant Thinking: Early Marriage” by Ovid Need available at SermonAudio.com does a commendable job of explicating the passages regarding dominion over creation and of expounding the need to train children for family life, it uses these passages as cover to impose personal opinion as revealed doctrine.

According to Need, the sincere Christian desiring to fulfill God’s will weds at an early age. As proof, Need cites the passage in Proverbs 5:18 saying, “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” and notes that in Bible times often people were married by the age of eighteen for boys and sometimes as young as thirteen for girls (he conveniently fails to point out the abysmally low life expectancy prevalent in ancient times).

Part of the reason for this decree in favor of adolescent matrimony (perhaps not that young but one must wonder if Need is going to suggest we slavishly adhere to ancient Judaic practices and in his own comments insinuates 30 is too old to have not yet wed) is to curb the evil tendency in the male towards (ominous drum roll, please) --- INDEPENDENCE. Heaven forbid one enjoy a period in life without nagging.

In the sermon, Need criticizes those with a more “dispensationalist” perspective for overlooking those passages of Scripture that do not mesh with their own diminished theologies. One might argue he himself is guilty of the same shortcoming he warns against.

For while there are passages mentioning marriage in youth, there are just as many examples of those in the Bible marrying in “old age” (as Need might categorize the period in the figure’s existential chronology in which the figure entered matrimony) or outright warnings against marriage. For example, Isaac was forty when he married and Boaz insinuates that he is no spring chicken when Ruth comes onto him.

Other passages indicate one is better off remaining single than to marry the wrong person and end up with a shrew of a mate. Both Proverbs 21:9 and Proverbs 25:24 (thus indicating the importance of the warning if God is going to take His time and mention it twice in the pages of holy writ) intone it is better to live on the corner of a roof than in a house with a brawling wife (and it is just as true with such a husband).

Yet another interesting passage can be found in Matthew 24 which extols, “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” While no man knows the day or the hour of the Lord’s return, only a fool would deny that things are not waxing worse and worse in accord with II Timothy 3:13, thus making it so difficult to raise a family in such a setting that it might be best if people not marry all together if they believe that to be the prudent course of action.

However, as a Postmillenialist, Rev Need cannot afford to admit that things are getting worse as his eschatological hermeneutic compels him to believe that things will be getting better and better as Christ cannot return until after the Church ushers in the Kingdom of God here on earth. Frankly, such a development would itself be a nightmare as mankind is not able of implementing a perfect anything; the best we can hope for is a setting that attempts to create an equilibrium between individual privacy and the common good with the realization that the institutions used to uphold the common good are capable of undermining the very liberties they were intended to uphold.

Friday, November 17, 2006

It seems the wife of Senator Collins from the drama "Vanished" is not the only thing that has disappeared.

Those looking forward to the thriller will be disappointed to learn that the remaining episodes have been quietly shunted to the program’s MySpace.com page.

Frankly, who wants to watch TV over the Internet?

Though it was rumored about that the show would be ending in a few weeks, I guess the past few episodes were more than the powers that be were willing to tolerate.

Two weeks ago, one of the conspirators (who just happened to play a similar role on "John Doe" several years ago before that show was suspiciously cancelled after only one season for getting to close to the truth) slit his own throat as FBI agents closed in around him and last week Masonic operatives with RFID identification chips were depicted trying to decipher a secret code contained within one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Are network executives really going to keep a straight face as they tell us that a two-hour block of Trading Spouses makes for much more compelling television?

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Dr. Stan Montieth of Radio Liberty and NewsWithViews columnist Nancy Levant discuss how high technology is being used to bring about a socioeconomic situation disturbingly reminiscient of the Middle Ages.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Coupled with the win of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, it seems with the Democratic victory that the world may be falling into a new Bolshevist Dark Age.

Some might argue the above characterization as a bit harsh, but it is entirely accurate.

According to WorldNetDaily.com article titled “Meet The New Speaker“, Speaker-apparent Nancy Pelosi has had ties to the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives.

At one time on the organization's website were song lyrics reveling in the fact that when the Communist Revolution came, guns and knives would be used against the "Bourgeoisie", a Marxist blanket term invoked to confiscate the property and savings of the middle class.

I hope those voting for the Democrats will enjoy the higher taxes, the swarms of immigrants pouring into their neighborhoods, the slaughter of innocent children in the name of ghoulish experimentation, and the increased regulation of their private economic affairs (in other words, things will continue pretty much as they were before only at an accelerated rate).

We will have to wait and see if their hatred of Bush will outweigh their love of big government in relation to the Real ID Act and the North American Union, pet projects of the President but ones inimical to human liberty with which the Democrats don't have much of a problem with.

Maybe if Republicans had acted like Republicans, they would have kept control of both houses of Congress.

But regardless of who's in control, this country is headed down to the trashpile of history anyway.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

In many Evangelical Christian circles, the time of the Puritans is looked back upon almost as a golden age in American History. However, upon reading Puritan Adventure by Lois Lenski, most will conclude that, while the period might be a nice place to visit, they wouldn’t want to live there.

Puritan Adventure centers around the widowed Charity Cummings coming to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to live with her sister’s family. Unaccustomed to the more austere New England life, she serves as a colorful foil through which to view the nuances and complexities of colonial Puritan existence.

Noted for speaking her mind and for what to the Puritans seems her flamboyant mode of dress, Charity becomes a bit of a thorn in the side of community authorities. Charity’s more easy-going nature is contrasted throughout the story with the sterner outlook of a number of the Puritan settlers, particularly the so-called “Tithing Men” charged with the business of getting into other people’s business in the name of proper behavior and decorum.

While many Evangelicals today pine away claiming they long for the kind of close-knit sense of community characterizing Puritan life, from the incidents depicted in this researched narrative, it is doubtful few of us would find their way of life all that enjoyable. For example, town officials enforce the ban on Christmas and the Tithing Men chastise children along the street daring to whistle because, “Knowest thou not that running will scandalize good folk (104)?”

Some will probably think Lenski fabricated her depiction of the Puritans from her own imagination. However, in the forward she carefully documents that much of her story is based upon assorted original sources and she includes an ample bibliography at the end.

Of her sources, Lenski writes, “I have incorporated in my story many quotations taken from early New England writers. It is these phrases, so rich and suggestive, in the original sources, which give this long-past age a glow of reality and truth. In them we hear our founders speak, think, and act. They are the rightful heritage of American children (page XI).” Lenski also does a service to history by pointing out that, while the Puritans seem unduly harsh to us, in their time Christmas was marked by drunken bawdiness and in terms of severity Puritans were “soft” on crime as they had only ten crimes punishable by death whereas England had nearly thirty.

In her trial before town authorities for introducing the children to Christmas, Shrovetide, and May Day, in her defense Charity Cummings says, “We came to this fair land to build a new world, a New England. If I then look back to the Old, if I remind you of the life we lived there, ‘tis because I wish to preserve the best in the old ways for a goodly heritage. So away with Old England’s wrongs, I beg you, but hold fast to its good, and make your new world the richer (215-216).” Likewise, we as their descendants should not dismiss the Puritans in their entirety but rather retain from them those dispositions that have withstood the test of time while guarding against those darker tendencies that in various forms have plagued mankind throughout all of recorded history and not just among the Puritans.

Taken by itself, Puritan Adventure does not paint a complete picture of the pivotal contributions to the American way of life made by this sect. However, when studied alongside other introductory sources such as Pilgrims & Puritans by James and Lincoln Collier, the reader will have a good understanding of these complicated Forefathers.

While the movement claims to support individuality, one of its leaders, Kevin Swanson, claims you are an materialistic existentialist if one does not follow his exact life-path and produce more than three children.

If it is selfish not to have kids, why isn't it selfish to expect everyone else to take care of your offspring?

He claims Hispanics have an above average birthrate since they have not been exposed as long to the American public school system. I wonder if this demographic would be as fecund if they were not given all manner of handouts such as WIC and free emergency medical care.

Prepare for more coffee bars, electric guitars, and tattooed pastors with rings in their noses in a pulpit near you.

From this article on the blog at Light House Publishing, the new head of this organization (Leith Anderson) might talk tolerance, but his minions are anything but as they prevented New Age expert Brian Flynn from discussing a number of mystical practices infiltrating the church.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

According to Dr. Albrecht the plan is essentially a food registration act that will permit the government near total control over the food supply and make it easier to drive the small farmer out of business.

Big shots that usually dismiss such concerns who have so much extra money on their hands that they own horses might change their tune upon learning that there are provisions in these regulations that one must inform bureaucrats each time you take Trigger off your property.

Furthermore, it is pointed out that those with registered animals will be required to keep a log of all visitors to their property to be turned over to the government encase of "disease outbreak".

Why don't you enact a bowel movement and flatulence registration act while you are at it since toxins can be released into the atmosphere through this manner as well.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Since a number of the trustees making this decision are members of Congress, does this mean if the American people employ tactics of a similarly seditious nature as the Gallaudet protestors that such members of Congress should be forced to resign?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

While Kevin Swanson does a good job of poitning out the failings of the socialistic public school system, frankly, I would not want to live in his brand of utopia either as in this edition of the program he believes girls should be married around 16 years of age and have 16 children over the course of their fecund years.

While people did marry at ridiculously young ages years ago, they also died a whole lot earlier on average as well. I have seen pictures of my own great-grandmother who died in her mid 40's and she looked like she was pushing 70.

Control by church authorities over matters not definitively spelled out in the Bible is still too much control.

Monday, October 23, 2006

In an informative episode of his program dealing with the decline of manliness in our society, Albert Mohler complained that mostly women called in to discuss the issue.

However, since his program is recorded at 5 pm, weren't the real men in America out working?

Furthermore, isn't it the perceived epitome of feminity to yap one's trap about the inner recesses of one's feelings with someone you don't even know?

Frankly, what manly man is going to want to do that on national radio?

While a vital topic, at its conclusion, it veered to close towards sterotypical depictions of manhood rather than Biblical ones as it was insinuated hardware stores were a proper place for real men to hangout.

Firstly, are those not given over to physical pursuits not to be viewed as manly; why aren't certain parts of the library considered sufficently masculine? For are not war and conflict as much about the mind as the body?

Perhaps we should castigate as limpwristed those unfamiliar with sagas of adventure and the intricacies of critical thought if the same kinds of insinuations are going to fly about those lacking fetishes over power tools.

Secondly, if someone is manly, frankly, they don't really need to be hanging around a group of men. If that's what one is craving to do, in my opinion that is itself a sign that one might secretly not be as brawny as one tries to lead others to believe and actually a bit of a flake at heart.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Two of comicdom’s most legendary characters are none other than Superman and Captain Marvel, more popularly known as Shazam.

To the unfamiliar, at first glance the two heroes seem almost indistinguishable from one another with Captain Marvel wearing the spiffier costume while Superman possesses the more iconic insignia.

Superman/Shazam: First Thunder chronicles a contemporary interpretation of the first meeting between the World’s Mightiest Mortal and the Man of Steel.

And though not the best-drawn story featuring these characters that have both been around since the early days of comic books, this graphic novel provides a bit of insight into the differences between the two.

For example, from a dialogue between these foremost costumed adventurers, the reader learns that while Superman might have superior senses, Captain Marvel is more immune to the effects of magic.

It is doubtful Superman/Shazam: First Thunder will be remembered as a graphic novel classic. However, fans will nevertheless get a kick out of seeing these legends team up.

Monday, October 16, 2006

In a classic Simpsons’ moment, at their show’s equivalent of Disney World dedicated to the parodies of Tom and Jerry known as Itchy and Scratchy, a giddy Homer is duped into trading his money for the amusement park’s imitation play currency which can’t be spent on anything at the park. The scene is humorous in that only Homer would be among those stupid enough to fall for such a scheme.

At one time, it use to be a sign of discernment if the prudent citizen was not taken in by such snake oil. However, if a bunch of grubby beatniks have their way, one’s willingness to fall for such nonsense will serve as a measure of one’s devotion to and support of the COMMUNITY.

According to the June 2006 Hyattsville Life And Times, the cities of Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, and Brentwood will be acquiring a local currency to be called the “Anacostia Hour”. Those hoodwinked into accepting this tender can use it to purchase goods from businesses part of the program and even pay employees “willing” to accept this glorified monopoly money.

The purpose of this dubious means of exchange as stated in the Hyattsville Life & Times is to “keep people shopping in the local community.” Maybe if a given municipality had stores worth shopping at or free from the dregs of humanity prowling the aisles of such establishments, residents wouldn’t mind spending their regular money in the area. But bigshots in these here parts insist upon either “high end retailers” or idiosyncratic specialty merchants selling novelty junk common folks have little need of.

Furthermore, in a market economy, it is not the business of any collection of individuals from where I acquire goods and provisions classified as legitimate in a free society. For while these proposals are often packaged in terms of civic enthusiasm, they are merely contrived guises for exerting additional control over the American people.

For example, way back in the cybernetic dark ages in response to a letter to the editor I had written regarding a local issue, one disgruntled neighbor wrote in the response that they shopped in the COMMUNITY (no doubt a dig against the distinct Wal-Mart bags they had seen my family get out of the trunk on various occasions) and that they gladly offered up their children for indoctrination at the local elementary school (a slur regarding my own private education). From the tone of the indignant epistle, one might conclude that the author believed I should have had my freedom of speech and other civil protections abridged for not prostrating myself before the radical whims of the neighborhood.

By implementing an alternative currency, residents gullible enough to literally buy into the program will be further conditioned into accepting the notion that the era of the individual making their own decisions for themselves is coming to an end to be replaced with a system where morality is no longer determined by reference to eternal values but rather by a consensus arrived at by the leaders of the COMMUNITY.

I am not making this up out of nothing. The motto to be emblazoned upon this lucre will be “In each other we trust.”

So instead of looking to God to get us through the trials and travails of life, we are suppose to rely on the drunken wife beater down the street or around the corner. That will sure provide a sense of comfort when you are lying there on your deathbed.

At this point in our cultural development, this little game is confined to the self-congratulatory leftists that usually get a kick out of such lunacies. However, it won’t be so cute when the program is made mandatory for the rest of us.

During the Great Depression, businesses participating in the National Recovery Administration were given an insignia with an eagle on it to display in the window. Eventually, this symbol became so pervasive that some Christians thought it might be the Mark of the Beast foretold in the Book of Revelation.

Likewise, those persons and businesses accepting the new currency in lieu of the old could receive assorted privileges and incentives from the overseeing authorities. Conversely, those refusing to participate could be financially reprimanded or penalized.

But even more importantly, by transitioning the residents of a specific region onto a local currency, the ability of the residents to travel beyond their own area could be effectively curtailed by requiring them to go through a lengthy administrative procedure to get their tender converted from the specie utilized by the COMMUNITY to that utilized for transactions outside the primary residential unit. This way, authorities would be able to cut down on what it deemed to be unnecessary travel and wasteful economic transactions. And residents will no doubt be discouraged from undertaking any unauthorized activities for no other reason than the bureaucratic hassle they will have to be put through.

Already in urban design circles it is common practice to set into motion disincentives for the use of the automobile. Aspiring architects and engineers cut their professional teeth in many college classes across the nation where they learn to design vehicle-free university campuses. And on an episode of Freedom 21 Santa Cruz, it was observed that the American people are to be conditioned into no longer viewing travel and movement as a freedom but rather as a privilege.

Some witty minds might quip what’s the difference between a local currency and the Federal Reserve notes we have been persuaded to settle all debts public and private with. Technically, not all that much since both are useless pieces of paper.. But until Americans can pay the extortive taxation being extracted from them with this new money, no more regard should be given to it than used bathroom tissue once it is sent on its merry way.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Each year as the school year gets underway, I write a column about the mandatory communalism that takes place in numerous schools across the country where unsuspecting students and parents are forced to surrender their supplies to educational authorities, deemed by the state to be of superior enlightenment than those actually acquiring the school supplies, for redistribution as these demagogic pedagogues see fit. While satisfying to write as there are few topics as visceral as one’s school experiences and the attachment one has to one’s possessions, somehow these most debated of my epistles somehow felt incomplete as they primarily dealt with a symptom rather than the underlying disease. For the socialistic communitarians that have infiltrated the public school system and taken it over for the most part do not primarily want your paper and pencils; the thing the really lust over are the hearts and minds of your children.

Usually, those concerned about the state of the public school system are told that if they don’t like how things are run, they are perfectly free to withdraw their children and pursue private or home-based alternatives to their liking. Overall, better advice could not be given; however, in the years and decades ahead such wisdom will prove to be charmingly naive and old fashioned.

For if things continue along their current path, there will probably be a day when it will be against the law to educate one’s offspring in anything but a state-run school. Already devotees of secularism and radicalism are laying down the perceptual framework necessary to bring about the paradigm shift as to whom has the ultimate authority over the minds of the young.

Some opposed to parents having the final say over the education of children won’t come out and say so directly. Rather, the subversions of the traditional family are often dressed in altruistic platitudes about socialization and COMMUNITY.

Often communal and anti-individualistic in their epistemological orientation, such critics claim that homeschooling should not be curtailed so much for the proverbial “sake of the children” but rather for the benefit of the government schools themselves. According to a May 16, 2003 FoxNews.com story titled “Parents Fight Government To Homeschool” by Trace Gallagher, “Many say that as more parents pull their kids out of public schools, confidence quickly erodes and has a domino effect on other public policy issues.”

In other words, liberals are afraid that, if children learn to think for themselves, they will do for themselves later on and the cycle of dependency on the state will be significantly diminished if not broken all together. As a parent, one’s responsibility is to the well being of one’s own children, not to the budgetary ego of some petty bureaucrat. For as the Fox News story concludes, “...the issue is about money --- every home-schooled child means fewer dollars in the public school budget.”

As such, those opposed to educational freedom will go out of their way to shame and penalize parents and students from leaving the system. Some enemies of mental liberty even suggest parents not feeding their children to the public beast are guilty of child abuse. Back in 2003, WorldNetDaily.com ran a story about a proposed law in California that had the potential to outlaw homeschooling by criminalizing parents of the “habitually truant” defined as five unexcused absences

This proposal was a concern since, under certain interpretations of California law, parents without a teaching credential homeschooling their children could be construed as operating outside the law. According to WorldNetDaily.com, in 2000 in the Berkeley Unified School District, truancy charges were brought against several families who withdrew their children from the public system despite the fact that the parents had properly filed all the necessary paperwork to establish a legitimate homeschool under the law.

Some might dismiss such legislative posturing as the kind of kookiness for which California is renowned around the world. Unfortunately, such radicalism is embraced by a broad swath of liberal leaders.

For example, Professor Robert Reich of Stanford, according to the Chalcedon Foundation Report article titled “A Quiet Threat To Homeschooling”, believes that the state should force homeschool parents to teach their children values at odds with those held by the parents. Reich, staying true to his name bringing to minds thoughts of totalist control, claims that the state has a compelling interest in allowing students the opportunity to select a way of life abhorred by the parents. And if the parents do not agree to this, Reich believes, they should be compelled to send their offspring to public school by court order (and thus under the following corollary of at the end of a barrel of a gun since anything the state requires ultimately has the threat of force backing it up).

Children have pretty much always had the right to chuck what their parents taught them into the philosophical waste basket. It’s usually called turning 18 or 21. And unless a provision has been added to the Patriot Act outlawing libraries altogether like something out of Ray Bradbury rather than simply allowing some government hack to snoop through our checkout records, children will have every opportunity they need to hoe their own path at that point in their lives.

Mind you, while the likes of Robert Reich think that public educators have their right to have their way with the minds of your children to such an extent that would make Michael Jackson blush, at no time will children indentured to the state have the right to formulate a system of values at variance with those espoused by the public schools while under the auspices of the public schools.

For example, while homeschoolers favoring creation science as their preferred theory as to the origins of the cosmos might be compelled to teach evolution or face having their children snatched as if the parents were common crack addicts, so-called “educators” and their ACLU taskmasters have gone out of their way to promote the perception that only the materialist conception of reality can be presented as part of the science curricula. Conversely, parents with children in the public schools believing that monogamous marriage is the only legitimate human relationship through which to enjoy conjugal affections have been told by judges hardly worthy of the silk in their robes ruled that parents with children in the public schools do not have the right to exempt their offspring from the perversions these scholastic pederasts seek to cram down the throats of unsuspecting students.

Even liberals less blatantly secular than elite university professors and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are edging ever closer to implementing the policy that any schools other than public schools are child abuse. Ordained minister and former public servant Andrew Young, in a bit of oratory that would probably make his mentor Martin Luther King role over in his grave, was recorded by the 3/18/04 edition of the Montgomery Sentinel as saying of parents pursuing private education for their children, “You are socially retarded and you ought to have better sense than to do something like that.”

Young claims private schools are a waste of money and deprive the young of opportunities to enhance their leadership abilities by not exposing pupils to the broadest possible swath of people and circumstances. But what exactly are the leadership abilities did Young allude to?

Obviously not those classic schoolroom disciplines of readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic. In Prince George’s County, Maryland (just one county over from where Young delivered his comments), according to the 10/20/03 Prince George’s Journal, in the southern portion of that county (an area of the jurisdiction lit with the type of diversity propagandists such as Young like to rub the noses of the American people in) only 36% of third graders were proficient in reading and only 38% of eight graders were assessed as such.

Maybe Rev. Young was not referring to those skills us half-wit private school graduates thought school was primarily convened to convey. Maybe he was alluding to the following behavior displayed by the young scholars elaborated below since such skills should do them well as members of Congress and the like.

According to Gazette.net in a story posted on May 24, 2005, four students at Wheaton High School (in the same county where Young delivered the speech in which he labeled as retarded [a put-down most give up by later elementary]) surrounded the desk of a female student and touched her inappropriately. However, a study by University of Wales Professor Leslie J. Francis featured in the May 5, 2005 ThisIsLondon.com concluded that 62% of boys in private Christian schools believed sex outside of marriage was wrong while only 13% educated at non-Christian schools believed the same way.

I ask you, if this young woman really was violated in the way she described (as nowadays spurned females as reprobate as the young males prowling the hallways of the nation’s public schools are not themselves above concocting such reputation-shattering rumors when they don’t get what they want) what group of young people would parents would you want her to be around? If being pawed over and felt up like a slab of supermarket beef is what Young has in mind when he says, “Your children will learn more sociology from bad kids than they will from European sociologists,” that is one lesson our children should not have to learn. Young is perfectly free to hand over his own daughters and granddaughters for such “hands on learning” if he so desires, but most decent people take their responsibilities as parents a bit more seriously.

Contrary to Young’s contention that parents have the obligation to cultivate “The sensitivity to problems we’re going to have to deal with all our lives” (code words for increased welfare and racial preferences for minorities) the first order of duty of any parent is to protect their own children from the physical dangers and moral filth permeating our culture. You are not expected to take up the cause of every whelp rambling down the street; that is the responsibility of their own parents.

From Young’s insinuation and innuendos, you’d expect home and private schooled kids to be sitting on their hands rocking back and forth drooling on themselves as if they were in some Eastern European orphanage. However, such young people are not the ones filling prisons, clogging our welfare roles, and pumping out out of wedlock babies as often as those on Metamucil run to the restroom.

So what if private and homeschool graduates aren’t as sociable (a fancy Ivy League word used nowadays as a euphemism to characterize a willingness to participate in various forms of deviancy)? So long as they aren’t getting public handouts, why is it any of the government’s business how such young people spend their time?

Even if objective assessments such as standardized tests measuring acquired knowledge rather than social opinions, competitions such as Spelling/Geography bees, and the accomplishments of those educated in this fashion in terms of books published, businesses opened, and scholastic prizes won are proof of the superiority of non-statist education, woe unto the public official daring to suggest that private schools with a solid religious foundation might be able to accomplish some good that the public schools cannot.

For example, back in 2003, then Secretary of Education Rod Paige dared to suggest that the reason Christian schools appeared to be growing was the result of their strong value system not found in their public counterparts as a result of these government institutions insisting that no form of morality is better than any other. For enunciating his own preference, numerous liberals condemned Paige for daring to believe that what he believes might be better than what those that claim there are no better beliefs believe.

But by condemning someone that believes that what they believe is better than what others believe (whether you like it or not) aren’t you saying that what you believe is better than what the other person believes? For if all views really are equal and you condemn someone for not believing that, aren’t you saying that the belief that there are no superior beliefs is actually a superior belief?

Exposing the lunacy of those out to undermine parental control of education should be just as easy. Thing is, one has to make an effort at doing so.

Within the Southern Baptist Convention, one group has counseled that parents should remove their children from public schools in favor of either Christian or homeschools. However, other voices with just as much sway within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination have coalesced around a counter claim that Christian parents are somehow obligated to send their children to public school since these are an untapped mission field.

Leading the charge in 2004 was none other than Franklin Graham. At the time, Graham told the Convention, “One important forum where American believers must share their faith is in the public schools. Instead of withdrawing from public schools, Christians should train their children to share the Gospel with their non-Christian classmates.”

Having spent much of his ministerial career assisting believers and the downtrodden in the hell-holes of the earth such as parts of Africa, the Graham lad certainly has a heart for mission work. However, he decided upon this calling freely as an adult and did not have it thrust upon him against his better judgment by denominational luminaries.

One would not send a child to face fanatical Muslims on their own turf. Then why should we send such youngsters into the hovels of the Humanists? For though they are not quite as violent as the Islamofascists, they are just as intent on ensnaring the minds of your children with their damnable ideology.

Franklin continues, “I want to see at least one child in every class in America who is trained as a witness for Jesus Christ.” Frankly, the primary duty of parents is not to please Franklin Graham but to do what is in the best interests of their own children.

It’s nice that it would make Franklin Graham happy to see an outspoken Christian youngster in every public school classroom across America. Since such would provide him considerable delight, will he be there for these kids when things go south? As the son of a Christian celebrity and now one in his own right, Franklin Graham does not have to worry about losing his livelihood or the custody of his children should he decide to exercise his God-given right to express his faith publicly as might happen these days in a climate were allegations of abuse fly and are believed so easily.

As a single voice (influential as he might be), Franklin Graham would not have all that much sway. However, one might contend that Franklin’s position rather than the alternative of withdrawal from the public system is the prevailing attitude among many SBC leaders.

According to Graddy Arnold of GetTheKidsOut.org in a Dec 22, 2002 Agape Press story titled “SBC Pastor: Biased Mission Board Ignores Public Schools’ Reverse Evangelism”, the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board insinuates homeschooled students lack “adult contact” (I guess Deborah LeFay can’t get her hands on such virile youngsters), exhibit “lack of socialization” (less likely to go boozing or at least less likely to go along with the group for the sake of the group as is occurring in many contemporary churches where the leadership structure is based more on personality than the Bible), and that “public schools have produced leaders in every arena of public life” (usually occupational advancement is not based on what you know but who you know or whom you’ve brown-nosed and the thieving overclass is simply likely to promote to their ranks those of a similar ethical background to themselves).

It has been said (a piece of wisdom attributed often attributed to Lincoln) that the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. From the degree of collectivism being pushed on the nation’s youths, it won’t be long until Communism will once again be the predominant ideological threat of the foreseeable future and just not some best-forgotten historical nightmare.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Friday, September 29, 2006

According to this sermon on courtship, parents still control the lives of offspring no longer living under the parent's roof.

But if the young folks aren't getting the bulk of their upkeep from mom and dad, what's to prevent them from cutting off contact altogether if the parents get too bossy?

This pastor also believes that a young adult has no basis to refuse a mate the parents (especially the father) has picked out for an offspring unless it is over a reason explicitly spelled out in Scripture.

Particularly interesting was the part where agents categorized the Constitution and related educational paraphenilia pertaining to the document authorzing the government's very legitimacy as "subversive".

If today a legitimate firearms business can be harassed with reason, how long until they go after the producers of "subversive" materials such as bloggers and self-publishers?

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

In this era where anyone holding a position short of compulsory miscegenation runs the risk of being called racist, it seems Oprah Winfrey might be one of the most prominent ethnocentrists of all times.

Speaking on her satellite radio program, Oprah admits that she has only one Black person on staff and (as one headline put it) likes to "lord over White folk".

Unless Oprah employs ten or fewer people since if she employs more Black folks are being underepresented on her staff, shouldn't she be investigated for her lack of Affirmative Action since diversity mongers subject every other business and private enterprise in this great nation to.

Furthermore, why is an elitist of her stature noticing color at all; doesn't Political Correctness dictate we have an obligation to ignore one of the most obvious of human physical characterisitics?

Interesting how prominent minorities are allowed to notice color all they want, but by golly if you are White, you had better be as blind to it as Helen Keller.

Can you imagine the controversy that would erupt if a major Caucasian broadcaster admitted to enjoying having pliant little Asian gals carry out his commands?

Since Miss Winfrey has been granted near godlike status among contemporary liberals and the like, I suppose she is too good to be bound by the same laws and social expectations infringing upon the affairs of us less noraml people beneath her lofty status.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Interesting how cartoon vegetables that sing about God and simple moral truths are deemed too offensive for Saturday mornings but when I wrote about condom ads aired during the same time slot the deviants that can't keep their pants on showed just how tolerant and accepting they are by ridiculing my own studious countenance.

According to this post at AlbertMohler.com, the network wanted unacceptable statements such as, "God made you special and he loves you very much." cut from episodes.

Can't have broadcasts undermining the Darwinism the young ones are taught in the public schools?

Besides, if students go through life fortified with the idea that they are special and God loves them, it might cut down on the condom revenue as with such an idea they will have a bit more internal wherewithal to resist this brand of temptation when the time arrives.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

For over a century, the Statue of Liberty stood in New York Harbor proudly extolling American values to the world, even doing so defiantly in the face of those finding this country an affront to their despotic aspirations and morays. However, as factions within the government conspire to use the war on terror as a smokescreen behind which to continue the transformation of the American people into docile minions of conformity, it seems Lady Liberty no longer stands quite so bravely because her caretakers compel her to cower before the forces of evil from both within and without this great nation.

Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, access to the statue has been curtailed and severely limited. The interior of the landmark was closed for nearly three years following the terrorist incident. And as with other aspects of American life, from that day forward the tragedy was invoked as an excuse one could not question without having one’s patriotism assailed to keep the upper reaches of the statue off limits in perpetuity.

In 2004, the Park Service begrudgingly reopened parts of the complex. However, to symbolize our status as pawns of the totalist state, visitors are only allowed now to go as high as the pedestal on which Lady Liberty stands.

Such a limitation brings to mind one or two apt metaphors.

First, one might say being forced to stop beneath the statue’s feet is comparable to Orwell’s symbol representing the future of a boot forever pressing down around the neck of mankind. Second, being forced to look up Lady Liberty’s skirt at where her unmentionables would be if she was a real dame reminds freedom loving people everywhere of the numerous perverts holding elected and bureaucratic office that derive a voyeuristic pleasure rummaging through metaphorical underwear drawers all in the name of homeland security in pursuit of information to which these authorities have no right or legitimate purpose.

After the Bible, probably one of the best sources of insight into human nature is none other than “The Simpsons“. In one scene fraught with prophetic implications that one had to laugh at or you’d end up crying because deep down you just know that someday it will probably come true, giant robots reminiscent of the Sentinels from the X-Men were shown whipping tourists (or prisoners since with the amount of surveillance these days in public places its increasingly difficult to make the distinction) as they file past the Capitol and Washington Monument.

If the American people are to be forbidden from enjoying Lady Liberty to her fullest, then why should we be compelled to pay for her upkeep? For as a holding of the National Park Service, isn’t the statue maintained for the enjoyment of the American people?

If not, just go ahead and sell her altogether to the highest bidder like some barroom floozy as was predicted on an episode of Dark Angel. At least that way we’ll be done with the hypocrisy.

To shame those opposed to open borders, those locked behind their gated communities and walled estates in need of an unending stream of cheap illegal labor tell us, if the Statue of Liberty is to continue as a beloved symbol of the United States, immigration must continue unabated. Ironically, had those coming to our shores (who actually wanted to be Americans unlike the immigrants of today) had caved so easily to their fears in a manner similar to that which these very same elites counsel in reaction to terrorism they would have never come here in the first place.

Don’t we owe it to their memory to keep access to the Statue of Liberty as free as her name implies?

Those forced to fill out the long form (euphemistically called the "AmericanCommunity Survey since in the current ideological climate only deviants fail to obey what the COMMUNITY tells them to do) are informed they face the potential of a $1000 fine for each question they fail to answer accurately.

These questions go beyond simple matters such as name and address necessary for the only constitutionally authorized purpose of the census, namely Congressional apportionment, to pry into all kinds of matters that would make a Peeping Tom blush such as how much you earn, to how far you live from work, and what time you get there.

Using the what's good for the goose is good for the gander standard, since identity theft is a serious problem and the Census Bureau dupes the American people into answering this perditious parchment, maybe Census takers careless enough to loose their computers should be fined $1000 for every name in the missing computers.

This discussion primarily focuses on the infiltration of the nation's churches by the Department of Homeland Security to coerce pastors into condition the congregations into accepting relocation into designated government labor and detention camps.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Though one does not want to unduly interfere with the affairs of an autonomous church and though I am ambivalent about lady preachers, I can’t help but feel that a 81 year old Sunday school teacher dismissed in large part because she is a woman has somehow gotten a raw deal.

What makes this case most vexing is not so much that the church in question forbade women from the get-go from ascending to positions of dogmatic instruction but that this lady was relieved of her duties after fifty years of service.

So why was it OK for her to be teaching all this time then all of a sudden her classroom ministrations transfigured into an ecclesiastical outrage that could no longer be countenanced?

Though I cannot be absolutely certain, methinks I catch a whiff of Purpose Driven Warrenism in the air or at least the stench of the church growth movement.

On the August 24, 2006 edition of The Albert Mohler Program, listeners learned that the pastor came to the First Baptist Church of Watertown, New York in 2004. If female Sunday school teachers were such an abomination to this minister but were permitted by this church, shouldn’t he have done the chivalrous thing and not accepted this particular pastorate to begin with?

The pastor claims that, after his arrival, the church began to experience a period of growth and this ruffled the feathers of some longstanding members. If this follows the pattern of this phenomena taking place in other churches across the country, this means rock music and jungle rhythms were probably introduced to attract a bunch of tattooed and possibly lice-infected young people more interested in dancing and carousing than actually worshipping God.

According to the Syracuse Post Standard, much of the stink stems from opposition to the pastor’s removal of a stain glass window and crosses in the church (can’t exactly have those scruffy hooligans feeling guilty about their sins, now can we, since that would hamper their self esteem). Part of church growth operational policy is that a church should not look like a church but rather like a rec center or a pub (and probably a brothel in a few years if the seeker sensitive trend continues much longer).

Standard Purpose Driven strategy in such a situation would be to neutralize the resisters by getting those whose egos have been stroked with the offer of ecclesiastical offices and honors to swear allegiance to the pastor and purge from membership those retaining their integrity through no unquestioning loyalty to no one but King Jesus. Makes you wonder if the problem with a lady Sunday school teacher in her 80’s is not so much that she’s a lady but that she’s in her 80’s and not led around as easily with a ring in her nose as someone considerably younger. According to one witticism popular among Purpose Driven theorists open to different interpretations is that the pillars hold up the church.

Though he was reluctant to discuss the matter in initial press accounts, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Watertown was finally man enough to admit on the Albert Mohler Program that more than the teacher’s plumbing was taken into account in this personnel matter. She was also let go since she was deemed not sufficiently submissive to the pastor and his cronies.

This matter of whether or not a woman should be allowed into positions of doctrinal authority within the church is indeed a serious matter. However, are all the other ducks in a row at this church as well?

Is the pastor going to take a similar hardline position against those whose divorces were acquired under less than Biblical guidelines? Given that the First Baptist Church of Watertown is a member of the American Baptist Churches USA, one would think this pastor would have weightier matters to consider like whether or not a pastor so concerned about a literalist interpretation of Scripture should even be a part of that particular denomination, convention, association, or however else you want to classify it.

For you see, the American Baptist Churches USA is involved with a number of matters that make the scandal of a lady Sunday school teacher seem quaint by comparison. For starters, the American Baptist Churches USA is a member of the National Council of Churches, a group of borderline Communists cutthroats in clerical collars that make the rogues in the bar scene from Star Wars look ethical. Furthermore, a number of American Baptist USA congregations just about endorse homosexuality.

It is not like heresy is anything new to the American Baptist Churches USA and struck the leadership of the First Baptist of Watertown unaware. After all, one of that denomination’s foremost personalities was none other than Martin Luther King, Jr.

While Martin Luther King might have done a commendable job for the cause of civil rights, he was hardly a font of orthodox Christian doctrine. According to columnist and pastor Chuck Baldwin, King denied essential Christian doctrines such as Christ’s deity, the Virgin Birth, and the physical resurrection (in other words, those very things that make Christianity worth messing with in the first place). Furthermore, King’s association with reported Communists and similar subversives has been well documented.

I wonder if the Pastor of First Baptist of Watertown would have the courage to put the smackdown on Dr. King or is that just something he does to old ladies? After all, unlike denominational bigwigs and assorted pressure groups, little elderly grandmother-types don’t have much ability to yank the purse strings shut or block access to the other niceties of positions those deriving their livelihoods from emolumented parsonships often crave.

Though this debate within the church makes for an interesting back and forth, probably even more disturbing is the response coming from the town mayor. Since the pastor also sits on the town council, the mayor felt it was his place to weigh in on the debate with the following comments: “If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age. Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now.”

Since this community apparently employ part time alderman, does the mayor speak out on personnel disagreements taking place at the day jobs of the others sitting on the council? More importantly, does the major plan to speak out against other religious organizations and groups that do not allow women to assume the highest levels of authority?

Since the mayor thinks he is some kind of equal opportunity crusader by kicking around the pastor of the local Baptist church, does he have the guts to take on the local Catholic church or is he just too afraid to take on the Vatican? Better yet, is he big and bad enough to take on the Muslims when they come to town as many times in that religion women aren’t only banned from positions of authority but also barred from the very act of public worship. They only thing the mayor should be worried about is whether or not the church is in compliance with the fire code or if members take over too many parking spaces on the street.

The pastor claims that God intended men and women to fulfill different roles within the church, and for the most part he is correct. But as my grandmother Louise Schwartz use to say, the man might be the head but the woman can sure twist his neck. So the next time he calls upon the ladies of the congregation to prepare the pancake supper or whatever else the gastronomically carefree gorge themselves on at such functions these days, perhaps these women of conscience should flat-out refuse pointing out it is not their place to cook promiscuously for all kinds of men to whom they are not married.

For if we are to adhere to such an airtight interpretation of Holy Writ, does it not say women are to be keepers at home? There is not one word there about being the kitchen scullions of the church. And if the pastor does not like it, tell him to take it up with the disgruntled husbands that are no doubt sick and tired these days of all these extraneous groups and Purpose Driven this study and Purpose Driven that study that act like they are more entitled to the labor of these women than the men to which such women are married.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Dr. Montieth interviews a representative from Eagle Forum originally from Austria who compares what happened in her homeland under the Third Reich and things that are beginning to happen here. A fascinating program for all those that truly love liberty. The comparisons between the two nations will send chills down your spine.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

As the federal government grants additional rights to terrorists captured in war, the American people may find themselves increasingly used as guinea pigs in the experimentation of non-lethal weaponry.

Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne said devices such as microwave guns had to be calibrated by targeting them on our own countrymen before they could be used on the battlefield aiming them at enemy combatants for fear of the condemnation of the world community (or in other words the scumbags of the earth).

Ladies and gentleman, behold the rising curtain of the New World Order where your very government is more concerned about the hurt feelings of some homicidal heathen that didn’t like being walked around on a dog leash but doesn’t not have second thoughts about going postal on your granny with a light saber.

As the saying goes, if we had had this attitude during WWII, we’d all be speaking German now.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A Christian bookstore in the Washington, DC metropolitan area told me that, though an important topic, books such as my Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors do not sell and thus the retailer said they were not interested in it.

Maybe if I titled it Purpose Driven Yuletide or Why I Kissed Scrooge Goodbye or after some other bit of inane navel-gazing drivel, I might be able to sell some copies.

So if you like to collect rare books, be sure to get your copy of Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors since it seems this tome will go down as one of the worst selling books in all of history and thus an ensured classic.

Since I have spent around $175 for this project, I do not have to sell too many copies to declare the project a success and still retain the claim to one of publishing’s worst selling books.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Sunday, September 10, 2006

In the spring of 2005, I wrote a column detailing what I considered a few of the shortcomings and dangers of the Emergent Church Movement. Much to my surprise, the piece sparked more of a debate than originally anticipated, full detail of which I am not privy but it must have been a real humdinger.

According to one pro-Emergent blog called TallSkinnyKiwi, since I have dared to say my peace elsewhere about tattooing, smoking, and boozing (three things Emergophiles seem to revel in with impunity), as well as enunciated differences with Presbyterians, and Southern Baptists (as if these institutions were somehow above criticism [perhaps they should be reminded about the Protestant Reformation ]), my comments about the movement ‘s grand pooba Brian McLaren are therefore out of line and not worthy of consideration.

In the spirit of ecumenical inclusion gripping much of mainstream Evangelicalism, TallSkinnyKiwi categorized my classification of McLaren as “the worst McLaren slam” making the rounds on the Internet and “This is NOT the kind of discussion we want to have, so please...no wrangling about words, no arguing, no divisiveness...Let’s have a good productive discussion that allows us all to move ahead.” No doubt headlong into the arms of apostasy. Thus, the practitioners of liturgical diversity hold the sacrament of tolerance should only apply to those agreeing with them.

My column regarding McLaren might seem utterly bizarre to minds too small to fathom the revolutionary apocalyptic changes sweeping across certain sectors of society, but I stand by my conclusions and assessments of this aberrant movement and its foremost luminary. Yet, from what I have learned since then, the situation might even be worse.

In the May 9, 2006 Sojomail ezine of the leftwing Christian rag Sojourners, McLaren is interviewed as to his opinion of The Da Vinci Code. According to McLaren, though The Da Vinci Code is lit with fallacies and distortions, these are no more serious than those in the Left Behind Series.

Though there is room for debate among committed Christians as to the specific chronology of certain eschatological events and that some of the plot elements seem needlessly drug out or somewhat silly, overall one cannot deny that the Left Behind novels depict a milieu where Jesus is Lord of the universe. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as little more than a sex fiend no more divine and thus worthy of worship than the rest of us. But since in their own words a good story is more important to the Emergent crowd than cold hard fact, all that is beside the point.

What McLaren and his disciples really can’t stand is the reasonably conservative outlook espoused by the Left Behind novels. McLaren writes, “The Religious Right has polluted the air. The name ‘Jesus’ and the word ‘Christianity’ are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that is distorted and false.”

Encase Pastor McLaren has not been off that spacious Burtonsville church compound of his surrounded by houses pushing a million dollars in prince, there’s quite a bit to be negative and angry about in the world today. Frankly, it’s that naive brand of Christianity with the sickening grin plastered across it’s face that is so emasculated that it doesn’t get upset at anything that is upholding something distorted and false.

The McLarenite beef with the Left Behind series is the way novels “twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end.” Mind you, I doubt he’s raving about a pre-tribulation rapture or the oddity of a believer chauffeuring the Anti-Christ around the globe. Rather, what McLaren is lamenting is Left Behind’s stern warning against global government and the amalgamation of world religions into a demonic mismash.

For you see, whether he wants to admit it or not, Rev. McLaren turns out to be something of a universalist deep down. For while he will no doubt dance around the matter with the obfuscation endemic to the Emergent Church movement, McLaren is out to undermine traditional belief in the afterlife, particularly the destinations of the soul popularly known as Heaven and Hell.

According to McLarenite doctrine, it doesn’t even matter if these metaphysical realms even exist and the belief in them are actually a holdover from a more primitive time, actually hindering continued spiritual progress by fostering what has become the new boogeyman constantly harangued from the twenty-first century pulpit and Sunday school classroom (namely individualism). McLaren comes close to insinuating that Jesus didn’t even believe in Hell but simply invoked the concept to best the Pharisees at their own game of verbal one-upmanship.

Instead of fearing the eternal torments of Hell and anticipating the unending happiness of Heaven, the truly spiritual person only concerns themselves about a this-wordly COMMUNITY. Frankly, if this is all there is to the Kingdom of God, I want a refund and being a Christian is a colossal waste of time.

The hyperpious might come down with a case of the vapors for me having said that, but whether they want to admit it or not, my opinion is essentially that of the Bible as I Corinthians 15:19 says that if in this life only we have hope, we of all men are most miserable.

Interesting how those in these revolutionary movements constantly counsel how we have so much to learn from foreign cultures when these alien dogmas undermine sound doctrine, traditional liberties, and private property yet so eagerly dismiss these concepts when a degree of congruity is shared with Christian belief. So what if Zoroastrians at that time had a more vivid understanding of the after life than their Jewish counterparts?

Does the idea’s origin somehow negate any of its truthfulness as apparently Jesus wasn’t the only Biblical source to endorse the notion of a punitive realm of the after life irrespective of where the idea might have gotten its initial start as the theme received its most elaborate treatment probably in the Book of Revelation. But if McLaren is going to get his knickers in a knot over Left Behind, he’s as sure as Sheol not going to like the Book of Revelation.

What good is the COMMUNITY going to do you on your deathbed as your existence is about to be snuffed out all together if Heaven and Hell really do not exist as destinations in eternity but merely as states of mind for the few brief years that each of us trod this earth? McLaren and his ilk often claim they have taken the tack they have in the name of bringing the young people back into the church. But if his message is going to be this life is all we have, why should they bother showing up Sunday morning at all because in the grim world McLaren posits (no matter how much Emergent types might try to put a smile on it with their scented candles, nose rings, and espresso bar, one is better off patterning one’s life after Hugh Hefner than Jesus Christ if tomorrow never comes.